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Author
Topic: Quality cut glass vase (Read 2424 times)

I don't normally go for cut glass but this one caught my eye with its vertical and diagonal cuts. 8 inches tall, star cut (16) base, plenty of base wear, lovely clarity, colour and weight. Chamfered top edges, inside and out. Any ideas as to who and when please. Click to zoom

I would say so in this case, it's extremely well done and fire-polished. It came from a local hospice charity shop and I suspect it came from the original owner straight to the shop. It's on an estate with a lot of elderly people.

I don't understand the second comment about the vase being fire-finished, surely that would mean the rim should have been rounded by flame?

Although it is not easy to tell the detail from photos, the work to the rim appears to be original with a cut and polished top having narrow chamfering either side to prevent chipping to the edge. The vase also appears to have been acid polished as the cutting seems less crisp than when finished by hand, ie not 'sharp' to touch - if anything slightly rounded on the edge of the cuts forming the pattern and indeed the rim. Would that be the case? If so, in my experience this would date the vase later as hand cutting and finishing has become far too expensive for most companies.

Nigel, going back to my comment about re-grinding of rims, I would assume therefore that any original chamfering would have been machine controlled and perfectly level? And that I should therefore only be cautious of chamfering that is uneven?

I see a LOT of Whitefriars that has chamfered top rims, and I am pretty sure that they never did that. Is that correct, or am I missing out on some bargains?

The chamfering would have been done by hand, certainly in the case of Whitefriars. Frank is right that noticable irregularities can indicate repair work, however one should also consider the fact that work was done by eye and would be better or worse according to the experience and/or accomplishment of the cutter doing the work.

Often when inspecting original work it is therefore possible to detect irregularities that are quite correct. For instance, sometimes on an item with say a square top, the thickness of the chamfer might vary along each of the sides, but the variation would be acceptable within tolerancies in the factory's quality control.

Of course if the widths vary dramatically it is pretty well certain that some poor restoration has occured.

On the other hand if a restorer takes care in their work, or they are instructed to do the work to the original tolerances by the collector or dealer, how can any of us tell what may or may not have been done? :shock: :shock:

Assumption, eh? Very dangerous thing when it comes into contact with glass :shock:

Perhaps the merit about glass is that much of it is not marked and much of it does not conform to prescribed parameters. It seems that when characteristics are attributted to a given company that is when the trouble starts :shock:

Never make assumptions, and never accept that because a company is known to have particular ways that it makes glass that it might not employ other ways to achieve that goal.

One of the truely great things about glass that attracted me to collect, and then deal, is that it is necessary to use a range of diagnostic possibilities - rather than have a back stamp, as with pretty well all types of china/pottery. It's far more of a challenge and far more interesting as a result :wink: